


Not For You

by Amethyst97Skye



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Assault, Awkward Sexual Situations, Blood, Blood and Injury, Consequences, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Fear, Fear of Discovery, Feelings Realization, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gender-neutral Reader, Heartbreak, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Injury, M/M, Mind Meld, Multi, Other, Past Violence, Reader-Insert, Repressed Memories, Secrets, Sexual Assault, Starfleet Academy, Suspense, Undecided Relationship(s), Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vulcan Culture, Vulcan Mind Melds, Vulcan Reader, Vulcan Science Academy (Star Trek)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 06:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11351889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethyst97Skye/pseuds/Amethyst97Skye
Summary: You are a Third Year Cadet at Starfleet Academy, based in San Francisco, and you are about to sit an intensely complicated science exam. When your superior officer, Commander Spock, offers to help, who are you to refuse another Vulcan's advances?





	Not For You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MollyBriana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollyBriana/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Tutoring](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164986) by [MollyBriana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollyBriana/pseuds/MollyBriana). 



Frustration was an old friend, an enemy born in hardship that proved itself, time and time again, to be the greatest of adversaries. Whenever you looked at the white glass windows, the silver mirror in your apartment bathroom, or the black metal tables standing like sentinels in the science lab, you met the eyes of your age-old nemesis, your evil, emotional twin, and there was nothing you loathed more.

For the umpteenth time, you erased your latest incomplete correction among an array of complex equations. You spun the blunt headed pencil in your hand wildly, flipping it between scarred digits as arms dealers and space pirates flipped gold coins over their knuckles. It came to a sudden halt and descended upon its unsuspecting victim. The grinding screech of two opposing forces clawing against one another filled the room. You looked down, but it was too late. The eraser fixed to the end of your pencil had been worn down to its pliable metal casing. It tore through the paper, shredding it like a cheese grater shredded the skin of the unwary, restless housewife.

The casing snapped, revealing the pencil’s soft red wooden skin, and great slashes were carved across the sheet. It appeared to have been ravaged by a wild, unrestrainable, untameable animal, and it had mauled endless hours of painstaking progress, drawing your own blood, in but a fraction of a second.

Your hands shook, nails imprinting, biting, and puncturing through the white sheet of skin. The raw rage in your bright, burning eyes would have imposed fear in the hearts of any sentient creature, but the bane of your existence was immune and suffered your wrath in silence. It was ripped apart, pulverised into a ball, and hurled across the room, striking the side of the black bin chute at such a high speed, and with such great force, that it dented the dead metal.

In the instant you rose and swung your arm, knocking your stool to the ground in your haste, you felt something split, tear and cry inside you. The pale hand you slipped underneath your red shirt and pressed to your abdomen came away green.

Blood.

_Your_ blood.

The sight sickened you.

By touch alone, you knew that you had ripped your stitches, again. Returning to Medbay was not an option. The doctors would ask questions you could not – _would not_ – answer, and the protection of client confidentiality only extended so far for so long.

You righted your stool automatically, resting both hands on the circular seat. Your vision was bordering acceptable, the pain bearable, and the distance to your accommodation navigatable in your current condition. If you did not have the material required, the odds were that your room-mate would, and they would not ask questions.

“Cadet?”

For a moment, you froze, a chill of terror running down your spine. You collected yourself, raised your head, and had the misfortune of finding your suspicions confirmed.

“Commander Spock,” you greeted cordially, standing at attention and saluting as protocol dictated.

It had not sounded like him, not truly. There was something in his voice, but that was impossible, and his unmistakable appearance meant your hearing, despite all the tests and experimental procedures you had undergone, was still unreliable.

It frustrated you to no end.

He nodded, a curt tilt of his head, whether as a means of acknowledging you or indicating you could relax your posture, you did not know. You remained stationary, fighting the urge to glance at the clock, your watch, or the time stamp on your PADD, acutely aware that it was now dark, that you had entered the science lab when the sun was still shining high in the sky, and that you were likely trespassing after hours.

“At ease,” he assured.

Despite your change in stance – feet parted, hands held in the small of your back – you remained alert. There were surprisingly few Vulcans in Starfleet Academy, though now you had had near three years to critically consider your position, you realised it was not all that surprising. The reason why Commander Spock joined Starfleet, rather than the Vulcan Science Academy, was a mystery, and you had never been one to back down from a challenge.

If it was down to his “disadvantage”, as the Council would undoubtedly term it, of having a human for a mother, you would applaud his decision without remorse or shame. You could not begin to contemplate the biological complexities intertwined by these oppositional races, but you were no stranger to emotion, and you had assumed he would be… different.

You were wrong.

He was cold, calculating, intimidating, and you adapted, conditioning yourself to restrain every action, compelling logic to rule rather than relying on your instincts.

“Permission to speak, sir,” you requested.

“Granted.”

“Please accept my apology for disregarding protocol by trespassing and neglecting our regulated curfew. Upon my honour, I assure you it will not happen again.”

His pause was brief.

That he paused at all was a sign of something, but you did not know what. Yet.

“Your apology is appreciated, but unnecessary. If you have a need for the facilities, they are yours to utilise as you see fit. If you are willing to share your quandary, we would, logically, resolve it in a fraction of the time it would take either one of us to deduce an effective conclusion unaided.”

Enrolling in Starfleet was, for all you knew, a cover for his true purpose. His father served as the Ambassador to Earth, one logical reason why he married a human, though her rank among the populace suggested otherwise. It was undeniable, however, that Commander Spock was, in his own way, a shrewd politician. He had extended the use of the laboratory he personally oversaw to you, a mere Third-Year Cadet, and had asked for nothing in return. Not directly. To refuse would be perceived as, at best, disrespectful, and, at worst, a racially discriminative insult he could take to court.

Racism was _not_ tolerated at Starfleet.

You had tried to keep quiet, to remain nothing more than a shadow, a single cog in a complex machine, but there was many an occasion where you could not, in good conscious, ignore your surroundings, or the people in them. It had earned you an unflattering reputation among the recruits, and another strike against your name could result in your immediate expulsion. There would be no warning, no regret, and no place for the incompatible cog to go but the scrap heap.

Reluctantly, you slid your notepad across the table, well aware that you had taken too long to respond. Your only hope now would be to minimise the self-inflicted damage.

“These are the equations set for the Tertiary Science Test,” he nodded. “You seem to be missing a page,” he noted, tapping the torn margin, a silent question and accusation.

You ignored his misdirection.

“An unfortunate casualty in the War of Revision, sir,” you replied, refusing to believe that you had seen the corners of the Commander’s mouth twitch. “In the interest of pursuing my career, I have endeavoured to take the Tertiary Science Exam at the conclusion of this academic year. During the course of my residence at the Academy, I have adapted to verbal debate, as well as the practical experimentation and application of knowledge, and I can demonstrate my understanding to the specified standard in both of these fields. I am, however, finding it… challenging to imprint my thoughts upon paper.”

The three-hour exam was exclusively comprised of written components, spanning an ever-increasing range of subject material, and your inability to express your insight in terms others would understand was a fatally crippling disadvantage. That was why you sought refuge in the science lab. You would not be disturbed, there would be no distractions, and you would not fall prey to the temptation of asking your roommate to engage in a debate with you about the relative subjects.

You would learn nothing that way. Nothing you did not already know.

Commander Spock had, no doubt, endured no end of shortcomings in his insistence to set a course for Starfleet, and you could not understand why he opted to sit and deliberated with you – for _hours_ – over the finer points of Transportation Theory. Surely, he had far more important tasks to see complete, but it seemed as if he might desire nothing but your company.

By bisecting with Engineering, Medicine, and Navigation, Transportation challenged every potentially conceivable application with regards to modern technology. In time, you fell into a routine, debating through your calculations, and the Commander proved to be both a patient tutor and a worthy conversationalist. Your concentration was only momentarily broken when he requested permission to ask a personal query.

Permission you had, unthinkingly, granted.

“I am curious as to why you favour traditional writing implements and materials.”

You were relieved, and gratified, to hear the word ‘traditional’ instead of ‘out-dated’ or ‘inferior’, but the Commander was a man of many talents, and psychological manipulation was one of them. Skills he had, no doubt, learned from his father. Since he had arrived in the laboratory, it had climbed several places on the hierarchy of compatible terms you associated with the Vulcan.

You could not even begin to explain why you picked up pen, pencil and paper over your designated PADD, but neither could you lie, not to another Vulcan, regardless of his heritage. Not when the man – and you used the term loosely – in question was your superior in every way. It was, however, out of the question to declare how valuable they were to you, how rare they once were in your little, insignificant world, and how the memories haunted you.

“It was my intent, Commander, to learn from my mistakes rather than allow the software to correct them for me. Self-analysis is an indispensable skill. There will, inevitably, be situations where we cannot rely on technology to think for us, to find what we have missed. Therefore, to combat any situation, knowing is half the battle.”

You had not faced him, for fear of retaliation, but he had seamlessly drawn the conversation back to the complexities of mass Transportation, first from a single locality, then multiple localities within a single star system, and finally between star systems without a standardised receiving pad.

When you signed off on the final equation, you could not help but smile. It seemed that not _all_ Vulcans were inherently lifeless, emotionless bastards, even if they pretended otherwise.

“Correct.”

You started, three decades of instinct driving you to act.

Your body snapped to attention, the Commander’s hot breath on the back of your neck compelling you to stand, but your feet twisted in the rungs of the stool. You cast out a hand, blindly, to find purchase, and was bombarded with a lifetime of images, memories and emotions that did _not_ belong to you. An arm coiled around your waist, steadying you as your body shook, but you could feel his uneven breaths rolling like waves in a storm over your pulse.

If the connection had been opened both ways, there was no telling what you had let your Commander see, not when you could not prize your own mind from the knotted fragments of his. You yanked your hand away the second it made contact, but it was too late. The damage – _irreprehensible damage_ – had been done. If you were not expelled now, for sexually assaulting a superior officer, it would be a miracle, and you knew that there was no such thing.

Your senses returned inexcusably slowly, and your pale face blanched grey when the bolts of pain registered, each emanating from where the Commander kept a firm hold of your body, not around your midsection as most others would do, but around your abdomen. Your uniform was thick, thick enough to hide a minor stain on the interior, but you knew there would be no hiding the blood if you did as was demanded of you and apologise, face to face, opening a mind meld connection to convey your sincerity. There was a chance, however slim, that he already knew, and no apology, no matter how sincere, could change the past.

He was speaking again, but his words made no sense. He kept calling your name, but it sounded sluggish to your ears. Irregular, wrong... unnatural, even.

This _was_ wrong. What you did, it had been within your power to avoid, but for one fatal moment, your control had slipped, snapped, and shattered.

It would not happen again.

You had no right to him. He was not your betrothed, and you knew, deep down, that the odds of him returning your... emotions were not ones you wanted to bet in favour of.

“ _Release me._ ”

Your voice, not that of a Vulcan but of your old self, burned him in ways only emotion could fry logic. Life or death, it was anyone’s guess. You unhooked your foot, grabbed your equipment, stuffed everything into your bag, and fled the science lab without a backwards glance. Pain lanced through your ankle with every step, but you kept walking, an arm curled around your stomach as you fought the urge to vomit.

He did not try to stop you, demand an explanation, or question your health, and you knew that there would never be greater evidence that the cold-blooded Vulcan did not care.

Not for you.

**Author's Note:**

> I originally intended for this to be based on an OC, but I felt ascribing a name and gender was too restrictive. What do you think? Let your imagination run wild, and please let me know if you would like to read this in Spock's POV.


End file.
